Wolfstorm

I love this cat so much that I drew him twice. Seriously, he's so incredibly cool and interesting, especially for a background character. I love how he started off as an antagonist and a close friend of Tigerstar, but ended up becoming one of Firestar's most loyal warriors. He genuinely deserved to be deputy, especially compared to Graystripe. Don't get me wrong, I like Graystripe a lot, but his promotion was extremely undeserved...

I feel kind of bad for him regarding his experience with being a mentor. His first apprentice and half-brother Swiftpaw died tragically before getting to be a warrior. Then his second apprentice, Fernpaw, he only got halfway through her training after her first mentor, Darkstripe, got exiled. And then he had to give up training Sootpaw because he got blinded. So basically, he never got to fully train an apprentice... Unless you count Swiftpaw, who was technically fully trained, he just never became a warrior.

I feel like him becoming blind and retiring was a bit sudden, but I do like him as an elder. His relationship with Mousefur is one of my favourite friendships in the whole series, it was seriously awesome. His brief friendship with Goldenflower in the second arc was really cute too! I wonder if they somehow bonded over their past relationships with Tigerstar...

Also, I like the ship between Longtail and Firestar. I just like their dynamic, I think this specific flavor of enemies to lovers is really fun. It's kind of a more extreme version of the canon Firestar x Sandstorm, which I suppose could be classified as enemies to lovers as well

About Longtail's design, I sort of tried (and failed) to make him resemble his parents, but without losing his individuality and charm. I struggled with choosing a tabby pattern for him, since he could either have Robinwing's, Swiftbreeze's, or Adderfang's patterns. They are all his close kin, Robinwing being his mom and the other two being his grandparents. But if I gave him Robinwing's tabby patterns, he would share them with Dustpelt. And if he got Adderfang's, he would have the very same patterns as Tigerstar... And that just seemed boring. Even though he's related to both of them, I didn't really want him to resemble them. So in the end, I used Swiftbreeze's patterns, but made them sharper, and then added some elements from both Robinwing and Adderfang. Then I struggled again when choosing his eye color... Right now it seems that his eyes are canonically green, but I really like the idea of him having blue eyes, just because I think it looks cool. And so, for literally half an hour, I went back and forth between him having green or blue eyes. I even considered giving him heterochromia at one point, but it just looked kinda wacky... So in the end, I followed my heart instead of the canon and made him blue-eyed. He now shares his eye color with his aunt, Willowpelt, and his great grandmother Flashnose. Then I made half of his muzzle black, to tie him to his dad Patchpelt somehow.

A very silly kitty. In most of the books, he's a bit of a comedic relief, just really chill and easy-going. He gets super serious and kinda mean in his mangas, but I suppose it makes sense for him to act this way, as he's away from his clan at the time, stressed, lost, and afraid of never finding them.

I honestly believe he didn't really deserve to be deputy, but I guess that's just the perks of being besties with the clan leader. This thing in The Broken Code where he became leader for a bit was also kinda weird, especially since he just came back to ThunderClan from his wanders at the time. But I suppose he still was the oldest and most experienced member of the clan, so let's say him being leader somehow made sense to the scared and desperate ThunderClan cats...

About his relationship with Silverstream, I'm personally pretty neutral about it. They were both really young at the time, their decisions were irresponsible, impulsive, and sometimes just kind of dumb. Especially Graystripe's, who just really can't make up his mind on whether his place is in ThunderClan or in RiverClan with his kits.

Then with Millie, I would say the relationship is much deeper. I mean, they spend a huge chunk of their lives together, unlike Silverstream and Graystripe who were seeing each other for only a couple months. Graystripe doesn't seem to have much of a relationship with the kits he has with Millie, being seen with them only a handful of times, and rarely ever being mentioned as their father. When Blossomfall struggled with her relationship with Millie, she doesn't seem to think of Graystripe at all. I suppose it could be because she didn't have any issues with Graystripe and was actually close with him, but we never see any of that, so who knows?

Graystripe overall seems to love his kids, but he's mostly absent in their lives... There's more focus on his relationship with his first litter, Feathertail and Stormfur, which is understandable, since their cirqumstances were much more unique and extreme. He's also just much closer with them, despite them living in different clans. In his superedition, where he's old and contemplating his life, he doesn't even think much about the kits he had with Millie! He has like, one dream of them, and later mentions them maybe twice. He seems to be the most distant with Bumblestripe, who he doesn't even bother to mention by name.

But honestly, he doesn't really think about his families in general in Graystripe's Vow... You know who he does think about, though? Firestar. This orange man is just constantly on his mind. His bestest friend ever and his true love actually. In The Broken Code, when Graystripe visits StarClan and gets to meet all his deceased loved ones, he's happy to see Silverstream, Feathertail, Briarlight and Millie, sure... But oh boy, he is absolutely ecstatic to see Firestar. He is just his favourite person ever. FireGray is real.

But in all seriousness, I just think their friendship is really sweet. They had some issues back when Graystripe was seeing Silverstream (FireGray angst? Oh my), but they worked them out and continued to be friends. They just have an unbreakable bond, from the moment they first met all the way to StarClan.

Old designs

2020